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Intel Developer Forum (IDF) was cancelled today. Owen Media has worked at nearly all of the conferences since 1997.

Intel was the “it” company in the 1990s. Today it competes with Docker, Google Cloud Platform, Cloud Foundry and other DevOps darlings for the attention of potential attendees.

IDF was a great event. If you never attended, here is what you should know.

VIP. The attendees were senior influencers, not filler. The registration fee was high for a vendor event. Intel expended vast sums to recruit the best attendees. Huge marketing orgs were assembled every year to drive registrations. It probably would have been cheaper to pay the right attendees thousand of dollars to attend.

Influence. The whole industry turned on Intel’s road map. Every two years the clock speeds would increase and developers could count on delivering richer applications which in turn drove customer demand. Nothing comes close to this today with the distant exception of AWS feature releases and price drops.

Ideas. Intel sells products to a handful of computer makers. This reduces the commercial aspect of the conference. Attendees learned about the physics of layering conductive materials on silicon, or energy efficiency or Wi-Fi compatibility issues. It was very science and technology. You can do this when you’re the uncontested category leader.

Those who have attended will miss IDF this fall. Intel used its influence and resources to host a great event for 20 years. Intel could have used the occasion to push product. Instead they created brand affinity with generations of hardware and software developers. It was a lot of fun. RIP Intel Developer Forum.